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Friday, August 22, 2008

When Nature Calls

Thing 1 hobbled through the gate. Beneath her oversized safari hat and knock-off designer sunglasses from Claire's (the most evil of crap-filled chain stores in a mall near you if you are the parent of a tween girl), she twisted up her mouth in pain.

"Daaaaaa-deeeeeee!" she sobbed. "I got stunged by a jellyfiiiiiiiiish."

I forgave her poor conjugation of verbs this time. It was obvious she was in a world of hurt.

"Where'd he get you?"

"On the beeeeeeeeach. I was fishing … with Mom … "

(Yes, Thing 1 and My Love were pointlessly sending XXXLbloodworms to their death on the Atlantic shores while I, Non-Sportsman of the Year, lounged about the pool of our rental home, mentally calculating physics and chemical compositions in effort to correctly determine which would be frozen first -- the Bucket O' Margaritas or Bucket O' Mojitos. This was important business as cocktail hour on our vacations commence promptly at 11:03 a.m. -- EDT.)

"I figured that much, honey. I mean where on your body did you get stung?"

"My foooOOOOOOoooooooot," she crooned pathetically.

In all the hours I have logged on the beach over my 40 summers of painful family and joyful non-family vacations, I had one fleeting encounter with Aurelia aurita. It left me with an itchy, scarlet rash on my inner thigh. Lest you think it was something else, perv, I was only 9 at the time and quite unskilled in the ways of women. Well, even less skilled than I am today. Regardless, I sucked it up and didn't breathe a word of it because I was raised Roman Catholic and we just don't talk about such things. Ever.

I sorted through my memory banks for some nugget of past learning that might apply to dealing with a jellyfish sting.

Let's see, let's see ... butter? No, no -- that's for burns. At least that's what they used in that pirate movie I saw on Channel 11 once when I was a kid. Besides, we only have Smart Balance.

In preparation for the aforementioned cocktail hour, I had been downing pint after lemon-wedged pint of seven-time filtered Aquafina -- official sponsor of my four-waking hours of daily sobriety whilst on vacation.

"OK, come with me," I said, leading her upstairs to our bathroom on the third floor. "This is my time to shine."

Thing 1 sat on the edge of the whirlpool bathtub. "Owwwwie! It stings. It stings. Owwwwwie!" she cried.

"Look, your Mom was raised amid a zillion square miles of cornfields. The closest she came to a jelly was bag of Swedish Fish at the matinee. Look, I'm locked and loaded."

"Daaaddeeeee! Nooooooooooo!"

And then I whipped out … my laptop.

See, during this whole time, I had been stalling so my Wi-Fi connection could fire up and I could double check WebMD.com. Sure enough, it confirmed vinegar followed by hydrocortisone cream, which we never travel without for reasons I'll let you ponder silently to yourself.

34 comments:

It's a blessing, really, that I am landlocked, for I never have vinegar.

Also? I wiled away many a teenage hour heisting the inventory of Claire's Boutique when my mom dropped me and my friends at the mall. I imagine I've paid my dues for my crimes, for all the earrings I lifted left my lobes infected. In a strange twist, I wonder if vinegar would have worked on my cheap earring affliction. Hmmm...

I am allllll about the $1.69 gallon of white vinegar (preferably from the Grade A). My house stinks like a pickle barrel, but I'll take it over the "green" concoctions available in the poison, i mean CLEANING, aisle any day.

If I remember that espoide wasnt that when one of Ross's girlfriends also shaved her head? Yes the things we can learn from friends.One more question....which froze first...the mojoito or marguerita???

There was a guy up here at the cape who had a face to face encounter with a jelly fish. In that the jelly fish got sucked onto his face. I wonder what the poor lifeguards were thinking. How would you have handled it?

Btw, I am quite familiar with Claires, having witnessed my almost 11 yr old daughter agonize over how much crap - er - stuff she can buy with only a 10 dollar gift card.

We recently had a discussion regarding this episode of friends while on our beach vacation.

My mother, bless her heart, can be extremely naive and ditzy, but also well meaning and kind to strangers. When a little girl apparently wa stung by a jelly fish, she called for me to remove Aidan from the ocean where I had sent him to pee, yes I am THAT mom who does not move off her beach chair to take her children to the bathroom, so that he could help the little girl.

Oh.So, you're saying that when my 16 year old daughter got BITTEN BY A SHARK I AM NOT EVEN KIDDING this summer in South Carolina I was NOT supposed to pee on her?Dang.That explains the looks I got from the Beach Patrol...

I was seriously scared for Thing 1. The peeing would have been traumatic! Well, I'm assuming anyway. Not that I'm referring to your plumbing or anything specifically. I, um . . . will stop digging and shut up now. :)

So crazy! Our family just took a trip to the coast and my son was playing in the ocean when I saw a dead jellyfish wash up on the beach. I freaked out and made us evacuate immediately. It was as though there was a shark sighting or something. I told hubby that I better be able to conjure up some pee fast if I needed it. He looked at me like I was crazy. I replied, "Friends? Duh! Remember how Monica peed at the beach?"